Fantasy of Fashion, Revisited
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What role does fashion play during a crisis?
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The following is one of my favorite stories I have ever had the privilege of making. It came out in 2020. I remember I finished it in my apartment during lockdown. And since it came out, there have been a lot of new updates that have happened. So first I'll play the piece, and then there'll be a little tiny follow-up. Enjoy. Linda Tessner wanted out.
I did not love living in the Middle West, the Midwest, and I really wanted to move.
Linda went to Ohio State University for her master's in art history. And when she graduated in the early 80s, she was ready to hightail it out to New York or Boston. I wanted a museum job. But institution after institution, Linda was striking out. Then, one day, Linda was flipping through a newsletter for museum professionals, and she saw a job listing to be the director at a place in Washington state called the Maryhill Museum of Art.
And I thought, what the heck is this? And at the time, there was no internet in 1983. There was no way to kind of check it up or look at their website. I had no idea what this museum was about.
But I sent them my materials anyway. Even though Linda was 26 years old and had never worked in museum management and didn't know this place at all, she got the job. And it was only then that Linda learned exactly where she was moving.
Maryhill Museum is in the middle of nowhere. The closest town is Goldendale, Washington, which is 13 miles away.
The Maryhill Museum of Art is a stately mansion perched on top of a cliff by the Columbia River Gorge. It's stunning, but it looks like it was just cut and pasted onto the Lewis and Clark Trail. It has absolutely no other buildings around it.
It's a very curious place because you drive to it and the museum just unfolds like a castle on the banks of the river surrounded by basically nothing but hills.
This is not what Linda was picturing when she got into the arts. She grew up reading fashion magazines, getting up on culture.
Glamour was kind of my Bible for a long time. I mean, as a teenager, I read every single issue of Seventeen magazine.
And then jump cut to Linda at 26 years old looking out over a vast expanse of the Columbia River.
A friend of mine said that she gave me a year because I couldn't live among cowboys.
The Maryhill Museum of Art is surrounded by acres and acres of ranch land. Visitors usually found the museum by accident as they were driving back from ski trips. The closest thing to a restaurant was the nearest gas station. The closest building at all was two miles away, a small cottage owned by the museum. That's where Linda lived, mostly alone. Why were you alone? You moved with your husband.
My husband was a research glaciologist, and he was on expeditions about nine months out of every year. So even before our marriage fell apart, I was living alone mostly. So it was mostly just me living there with a big dog.
Linda's big dog was her protector, barking at the rattlesnakes that appeared in her yard and sometimes in her basement.
I don't know.
I was a braver person when I was 26 and stupid. As for the collection, what was actually inside the Maryhill Museum of Art It was all over the place, as random and fascinating as its location. Because the whole museum was created as a lark by four random, fascinating friends. The main founder was businessman Sam Hill.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What role does fashion play during a crisis?
0:03–5:18
2
Who is Linda Tessner and what is her story?
5:18–11:12
3
What is the significance of the Maryhill Museum of Art?
11:12–21:05
4
How did the Maryhill Museum's collection come to be?
21:05–37:44
5
What impact did World War II have on Parisian fashion?
37:44–44:34